Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Government 2.0 at the Auistralian Parliament House

The "Government 2.0 Public Sphere Camp" will be help at Parliament House, Canberra, 22 June 2009. This is the second interactive event organised by Senator Lundy, with the able assistance of open source evangelist Pia Waugh.

The first event was the very successful "High Bandwidth for Australia", help at the ANU, 7 May 2009. These use short presentations supported by online forums, before during and after the face-to-face event, to provide an intense discussion of issues.

My own contributions for the event are to suggest internet and web technology can help with open government and reduce the cost of government at the same time. MPs and Senators could do more of their business online and so spend more time in their electorate, rather than in Parliament House. Also I suggested Steven L. Clift’s Democracies Online Project would make a useful contribution.

But before we worry about Government 2.0, we have to make sure government is capable of making use of simple internet technology, such as web pages. A recent audit report indicates 90% of agency reports to Parliament are online but most are hard to read because of the format used.

Government 2.0 is a rising topic of debate across the world. Trends in technology, media and public opinion have made it both more possible and more necessary for governments to reconsider what and how information is made freely available to the public.

This Public Sphere event will gather views on how creating an even more participatory form of government in Australia will improve theeffectiveness of public administration, enable communities to betterhelp themselves, promote renewed engagement in the democratic process and enhance our capacity to respond to emerging complex social, geopolitical and environmental challenges. We expect the topic and resulting event to bring together government practitioners and decision-makers, and interested parties outside of government. ...From: Government 2.0 Public Sphere Camp, Senator Lundy, 2009